Abstract:
The purpose of this research were : To study and analyse annual reports of university libraries in Thailand issued during 2518-2523 B.E. (1975-1980) with focus on forms, methods and contents; To find how librarians sued their annual reports including problems in preparing annual reports, To form guidelines in preparing and adapting annual reports. The procedures of the research were : 1. Collecting 39 annual reports from 8 university libraries in order to analyse particularly their forms, methods and contents according to the analytical tables formed. 2. Sending 65 questionnaires to 8 chief librarians, 3 former chief librarians, 6 departmental librarians and 48 persons preparing annual reports which 63 completed questionnaires were returned ( 96.92% ) The results could be concluded as the followings: 1. Form : Most of university library annual reports always presented especially as library reports. There were 17 annual reports from 5 universities having titles and cover binding. Most of illustrations were statistical tables. 2. Method : 2.1 All university libraries had defined their objectives for preparing annual reports. The one which is the same is to record the facts of library operations. Annual reports of 6 universities were administrative reports. Seven university libraries reported their activities during the budgetary year (October-September ). 2.2 Each university library had only one compiler for each year. Most of them ( 8 persons ) were departmental librarians. Most compilers and the assistant compilers prepared annual reports by study the previous annual reports ( 42 persons ) and realized the correctness of facts and statistical data ( 41 persons ). Most of them ( 40 persons ) had problems of receiving incomplete data from various library departments. In addition, all compilers prepared their annual reports with four similar procedures: defining outline of the annual report; informing descriptively to all departments and fixing time to receive facts and data; gathering thoroughly needed facts and data; then, compiling and editing all facts and data. 2.3 Four university libraries published their annual reports by mimeograph. Only one library published annual reports by printer. Two from eight libraries publicized their annual reports as partial of university reports. Only one annual report publicized in the journal issued by the library. Seven libraries distributed their annual reports to university administrators and only three libraries publicized to library users too. 3. Contents: Most of annual reports (21 volumes from 6 libraries) presented descriptive contents assembled with statistics. Most of discovered descriptive contents were introductions (17 volumes). As for the summation of the important outcome of library operations, the most founded were library services. All annual reports had statistical contents. Most of them were statistics in detail (25 volumes from 6 libraries ). 4. Chief librarians, former chief librarians, departmental librarians and other compilers (61 persons) realized the necessity of compiling annual reports because of their utilization of reporting library progress, and evaluating library work. Most of them (58 persons) used annual reports for improving library operations. Also, most of them (59 persons) believed that annual reports had rarely been used in public because university libraries did not widely distributed their annual reports. Moreover, seven chief librarians used facts and data from annual reports for demanding more budget and six of them were approved. Recommendations are as follows: 1. Chief librarians should define the purpose of compiling annual reports for administrative utilization and library public relations. 2. University libraries should compile both administrative annual report and public information report. 3. Compilers should be departmental librarians who take care of library public relations. 4. Compilers should define completely all procedures and should study various methods and principles to prepare the annual report from books and articles. 5. University libraries should provide particular budget for publishing annual report by printers for public and presented especially as library report with cover binding and having various illustrations consisting of flowcharts, tables and photographs. 6. Contents of annual report should consist of descriptive text and statistics.